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Marine Madatyan

Armenia’s Ministry of Education Spends Over $100,000 for Textbooks not Requested by Schools

Armenia’s Ministry of Education and Science has spent 54 million AMD on elementary school textbooks this year that the schools never requested.

At today’s exchange rate, this amounts to US$112,330. So why were the textbooks published in the first place, and what has happened to them? Hetq has received any number of answers – “they’ve been stocked away”, “they’ll be distributed next year”, “they’ve been handed out to schools”.

Such vague replies lead us to believe that the ministry cares more about giving business to publishers and less about seeing to the needs of schools.

These are textbooks distributed freely to pupils. The ministry has contracted with various publishers to print the textbooks, without any competitive bids.

The Ministry of education and Science, in a response to a Hetq inquiry, writes: “Upon the directive of the minister, the National Education Institute declared in 2007 and conducted a competition for elementary grade textbooks. During the competition, bids submitted by publishers were evaluated and a price competition was conducted among the publishers meeting the content threshold. The publisher presenting the lowest price was declared the winner.”

Thus, since 2007, textbook content hasn’t been reviewed. The ministry also hasn’t considered whether lower bids for books with similar content might have been possible over the years. The same publishers continue to print textbooks based on bids made almost ten years ago.

As to our question who decides how many books to print, the ministry replied that it circulates a questionnaire to public schools asking the quantity of books needed. Book requests made by Yerevan schools go to the municipality. Schools in the provinces forward their requests to the provincial governments.

Based on these requests, the ministry says it spent 854 million AMD on books for grades 1-4 in Armenia’s public schools. Contracts were signed with eight publishers. Here's a breakdown:

Hetq wrote to the ministry, asking for copies of the requests it allegedly received from schools in Armenia. In response, the ministry sent Hetq the number of books required for each subject in schools in the ten provinces and Yerevan.

Comparing the total number of books requested from all schools in Armenia with the number eventually printed by the contracted publishers, it turns out that some books were printed in amounts surpassing demand.

Thinking that it’s possible that more textbooks were printed for Artsakh, Javakhk and diaspora Armenian communities, Hetq telephoned the publishers. They told us that the books were only printed for use in Armenia.

Sabet Hovhannisyan, director of Arevik publishing, said that the books in question were printed in eastern Armenian, and couldn’t be sent to western Armenian speaking diaspora communities. If this was the case, Hetq asked publishers why more books were being printed than needed. They responded that they were merely fulfilling ministry orders and knew nothing about the requests submitted by schools.

Let’s now look at the publishers one by one.

The publishers told Hetq that they sent books, as per ministry contracts, to provincial governments and the Yerevan municipality, for subsequent transfer to the schools.

To make sure, Hetq requested shipment receipts from the provincial governments. Comparing the documents, we can state that quantities of books were sent as per the ministry’s orders. Education departments at the provincial governments had no idea why some books were printed in amounts surpassing school needs.

Narineh Hovhannisyan, head of the ministry’s public education department, believes that such over printing isn’t a waste of taxpayer money.

“Everything is printed a bit more. If the books aren't used, they are stored away and used the following years. This doesn’t cost anyone anything. The number of pupils might increase. That’s why more are possibly printed,” said Hovhannisyan.

Hetq also spoke to school principals, who said their submitted requests specified amounts a bit more than necessary, taking into account the possibility that pupil numbers may increase. This means that the ministry doesn’t need to increase print quantities since principals already factor in the possibility for increased pupil numbers. When asked where the extra textbooks are, Hovhannisyan replied, in school libraries or possibly provincial government storage.

When we told Hovhannisyan that in some cases the differences between books requested and ministry contracts were large, 11 million AMD in the case of Edit Print, the official was adamant that this wasn’t the case. “That’s impossible. I’m talking about a small percentage that doesn’t harm the state. The rest are used the following year,” said Hovhannisyan.

In the calculation to arrive at the $100,000 for excessive book printing, we haven’t included the chess textbooks and work notebooks published by the Chess Academy or the Armenian Church History textbook. The ministry doesn’t evaluate the need for both texts.

Narineh Hovhannisyan says that schools submit requests for the chess text directly to the Chess Academy. Once printed, the academy distributed them to schools. While the ministry pays for the printing, it doesn’t monitor individual school needs or whether more are printed than requested.

Schools send requests for Armenian Church History textbooks directly to the Christian Education Center, a branch of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Again, while the ministry pays the printing expense it doesn’t compare school request numbers with the number to be printed.

In Armenia’s Tavoush Province, textbook matters are handled by Department of Public Education staffer Khachatour Khachatryan. He confirmed that the department had received and distributed copies of a fine arts textbook for 3rd and 4th grades, even though no order had been submitted.

-Mr. Khachatryan, if you never submitted an order for the books, why were they shipped?

-They brought them and we didn’t give them back. We distributed them to schools.

-But you didn’t need the books.

-I can’t say why they brought the books. We distributed them anyway. The schools need them.

While no school in Yerevan or the provinces filed a request for the 3rd and 4th grade art book, the ministry signed an 18 million AMD contract with Zangak 97 to print it.

(To be continued)

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